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Post by Foggy on Dec 19, 2023 18:20:23 GMT
I'll be visiting friends in both Highbridge and Bridgwater before the end of the month but then might not set foot in either town next year, for the first time since 1986. Not as some kind of deliberate boycott, it's just that I won't have a base there anymore and don't fancy paying to stay at the Isleport Travelodge.
Can't help but feel it's sad to see the area might be getting bluer just as much of the rest of the country comes to its senses, though I appreciate both seats were won on a split vote with the usual pitiful turnout.
As for the gender identity of the Labour candidate: yep, it's the kind of place where Pride-on-Sea have had to be very courageous just to hold public gatherings. I wonder how many of the 149 voters were unaware of the fact, and how many are quietly accepting that trans rights are human rights.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 19, 2023 18:12:27 GMT
That was already known when the City Council election was rerun earlier this year. Not got a detailed answer to John's second question except to say that clearly the wheels of German bureaucracy and justice move far too slowly.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 7, 2023 0:56:52 GMT
True, you're right that the attempted psephological points are too fussy and easily refuted.
As for 'just point before' - for some reason I thought Conwy had been abolished earlier than 2010 so I originally put 'at some point' then wanted to say 'just before' and somehow ended up with a bit of both.
Ignoring my pickiness over spacing and punctuation, there are still at least three spelling errors, a five-digit year and a missing word. I appreciate Robert's been pumping those out like nobody's business so I only went through this one with a fine tooth comb because I live here now so I've got skin in the game and he hasn't. Extrapolating that across hundreds of constituency write-ups could mean thousands of typos and other basic mistakes throughout the Guide.
At that point I think the project would seem less 'amateur' in the sense of 'a labour of love' and more 'amateurish' as in 'put together by dilettantes'. I'll spare the rest of the seats my dubious checking "skills" though. And yes, I realise plenty of reputable publications notoriously err at times too (especially on the statistical side, which looks sound here), but the hit rate seems much lower.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 6, 2023 5:55:39 GMT
These are clearly not typical parts of the usually Conservative Clwyd West, but politically the main sections of Bangor Aberconwy come from two constituencies with very different electoral traditions. Essentially Aberconwy was a marginal Tory seat with a strong Labour challenge while Arfon had always been won by Plaid Cymru, but also with Labour close behind. Despite the acreage of the inland section, Aberconwy was dominated by the coastal strip from Llanfairfechan through the seaside resort Penmaenmawr and dramatically castellated Conwy ( the name of a similar constituency before 2010) to the largest town by far, Llandudno (2021 population just under 20,000), ending in the east at Penrhyn Bay. The current internal political makeup of the larger, Aberconwy, element of the new constituency is clouded both by a large number of strong Independent candidatures (they returned 22 of the 55 councillors in the most recent Conwy county borough elections, in May 2022) and local government boundary changes which meant that this contests were not on the same electoral divisions as used by the Commission. However, it is clear that Labour are competitive in most of the urban units. In 2022 they took the top spot in the elections in Penmaenmawr, the Pandy division of eastern Llanfairfechan, Conwy itself, and the Gogarth Mostyn division of Llandudno – which is the one covering the dominant physical feature of St Ormes Head, as well as Tudno, which covers the south Llandudno neighbourhoods where most if its social rented housing is to be found. Labour too hold one of the seats too in the Llandudno Junction area (Glyn y Mark division). In most of these cases the representation was shared with Independents, not another party, but not all. The Conservatives do best in the more middle -class and owner occupied urban neighbourhoods, such as Craig-y-Don in Llandudno itself and Deganwy on the way from there to Llandudno Junction. They took two of the three seats in Gogarth Mostyn and shared Bryn with Labour. Plaid Cymru, unsurprisingly do best inland notably in the small market town of Llanrwst on the River Conwy, and in picturesque Betws-y-Coed, as the proportion of Welsh speakers is much higher in these parts. The Gwynedd (and former Arfon constituency) section is much harder to analyse, not because of Independent strength but because the Plaid Cymru dominance of the council (44 seats compared with 23 Independents and just 2 from other parties) does not reflect general election behaviour. In particular the Labour party has almost no presence in municipal elections. They only put up 10 candidates for the 69 available places in the most recent Gwynedd elections in 2022, and most of them finished bottom of the poll. The major exceptions to this were outside the areas placed in Bangor Aberconwy (the only one they won was in the Hendre division of Caernarfon town, majority 7, and they missed out in Yr Eifl on the Llŷn peninsula by 2 votes). Yet there is Labour strength in the Gwynedd part of the new constituency, for example in Bangor itself. Bangor is the major urban unit of the Arfon section of the new seat, with a population of 17,000 in 2021, though it is perhaps a little fortunate to be given the lead in the name, given that Aberconwy donates almost 65% of the electorate, and the ex-Arfon sector includes other communities like Bethesda inland and Abergwyngregyn near the Menai Strait. Nevertheless, Bangor is a distinguished place – a city ‘by ancient prescriptive right ', and confirmed as such in 1927 and again by Queen Elizabeth II in 1974, when it was abolished as a borough in the local government reforms. As well as a cathedral, it also has a long-established university, set mainly on the hills of Upper Bangor, where well over half the residents are full -time students. The cosmopolitan ambience casts doubt on that Welsh Nationalist municipal dominance. Even though Plaid Cymru did indeed win the Canol Bangor ward which covers the university area, only 754 votes were cast in total in 2022, and there was no Labour candidate here either. Even though Hywel Williams won Arfon in every one of its elections, Labour held his majority to between 3,688 (in 2015) to just 92 in 2017, and they still polled over 10,000 votes in December 2019. Their lack of local government organisation - indeed of presence - belies a substantial level of support scattered across the whole of the former Arfon. Oddly, therefore, it is the party which never won either Aberconwy or Arfon which starts favourite for the first parliamentary contest in Bangor Aberconwy. Labour, having narrowly missed out on a number of occasions in both the predecessor seats, look to have the consistent strength, especially when on a roll as in the latter half of the 2019-24 period, finally to make a breakthrough. Overall a very good effort at the seat I'm likely to be voting in at the next UK general election. The first bolded statement is correct, but upon its creation it was thought to have a wafer-thin notional Labour majority according to some notionals. Again it's true that there was a constituency simply called Conwy (or even Conway) just point before 2010, but the other immediate rough equivalent predecessor to part of Aberconwy was Meirionydd Nant Conwy. Last minor quibble is of course that there isn't an exact one-to-one correlation among having Welsh as a first language, voting for Plaid Cymru and favouring separatism but I do accept there's a link. The underlined parts are suggestions for tidying up spelling and the like. Thanks for your efforts anyway. It's a huge undertaking so understandably some sloppiness on the technical side will creep in here and there.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 4, 2023 6:13:08 GMT
3 days ago, the Green Party of Canada won their first seat in the Ontario Assembly in a sensational gain from the New Democratic Party, via a by-election in Kitchener Central. Perennial candidate John C. Turmel, holder of the Guinness Record for most elections contested and lost, polled his second lowest vote total ever in that by-election-13, but amazingly that was only bad enough to finish third-last. Oh, boy. 1. In Canada, the federal and provincial parties are usually not affiliated, so, that is the Green Party of Ontario. 2. The Ontario Greens already hold the seat of Guelph, with their leader Mike Morrice. 3. Ontario doesn't have an Assembly, but a Provincial Parliament. Schreiner!! Morrice is the federal MP for Kitchener Centr e.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 2, 2023 20:55:30 GMT
Just be thankful that New Zealand never ended up as a federation in its own right. (Then again, think of the extra psephological data we'd be getting!) Now, if there were a landlocked confederal country in western Europe of around 8.7 million people that consisted of, ooh - say - 26 constituent parts, then that would really be silly. Things were more fun when it was made up of 20 constituent parts and six consitutent half-parts. I was trying to find a term that would encompass both the cantons and half-cantons. Perhaps I should've gone for 'jurisdictions' instead?
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Post by Foggy on Dec 2, 2023 20:53:28 GMT
Since the original post didn't specify British by-elections, might I recommend Waitaki Votes: A Study of a New Zealand By-election, written by then-future (UK) Labour MP Austin Mitchell in 1962?
Although as it's now 61 years old I concede it's outside of the time scope specified at the top of the thread. Apologies.
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Post by Foggy on Nov 29, 2023 23:07:25 GMT
20+8+2=30 ministers & stateSecretaries for 5 million people... Just be thankful that New Zealand never ended up as a federation in its own right. (Then again, think of the extra psephological data we'd be getting!) Now, if there were a landlocked confederal country in western Europe of around 8.7 million people that consisted of, ooh - say - 26 constituent parts, then that would really be silly.
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Post by Foggy on Nov 28, 2023 19:48:57 GMT
Warwick, Warwick All Saints & Woodloes (2026). Raj Kang (Labour) has ceased to be a councillor. Red Kangs are best?
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Post by Foggy on Nov 13, 2023 3:55:10 GMT
Will the deal with the Basque nationalists not cause some controversy as well? Given the history there? Why would it? José Maria Aznar was originally invested as PM in 1996 with the votes of the PNV-EAJ even though he didn't need those extra 5 to get him to the magic number of 176, meaning the right isn't above doing deals with Basques just for extra reassurance either. Back then the armed ETA campaign was much more active and the two small left-wing Basque parties were seen as being associated with them. Nowadays the network has largely been dismantled (aside from some smalltime drug and weapons smuggling - the former of which Feijóo has no reason to disapprove of anyway) and EH Bildu has in any case denounced terrorism, so I can't see why that should be an issue in 2023.
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Post by Foggy on Sept 12, 2023 23:26:10 GMT
In 2010 I remember finding a website which said living in Arfon gave me the strongest voting power of anywhere in the country, because it had the smallest electorate of any mainland seat and because even though Hywel Williams was already MP for Caernarfon, the new version of the constituency had a notional Labour majority of under 100, making it an ultra-marginal.
Obviously the former is no longer a factor, whilst the latter ignored the fact that I didn't want to vote for either Team Red or a separatist (and still don't).
Now if Ben's notionals are correct, I'll be living in a seat with a notional Conservative majority of three votes! Already had a questionnaire through from Robin Millar, asking if something he promised the Tories would fix if they won in his 2010 leaflet should now, in 2023, finally be a priority for the government.
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Post by Foggy on Sept 11, 2023 21:42:16 GMT
Dei Greng- the Greens. The third coalition partner. That's about it. Ah, good to see them standing in solidarity with their Irish counterparts there.
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Post by Foggy on Aug 20, 2023 4:39:18 GMT
Its neighbour Wyre & Preston North seems worthy of a mention as well. I think Tiverton & Minehead is worse than Tiverton & Honiton. Tiverton and Honiton isn’t great but Tiverton and Minehead is worse. If you started from Tiverton and tried to create the ideal seat for that town I think realistically youd probably go West and North West and take some territory from Central Devon and some from North Devon. For whatever reason, the Commissioned appeared determined to leave North Devon as both one of the few unchanged constituencies in the entire country, and as coterminous with the district. I can understand the attraction of the latter, but it was a needless restriction for Commissioners to impose on themselves given all the required changes nearby. Once they'd boxed themselves into that corner, a cross-county seat became virtually unavoidable, but even then there were better workarounds, such as the Tiverton & Wellington alternative I mentioned both on these forums and in at least one of my submissions (even if it still wasn't my preferred solution, it's definitely better than Tiverton & Minehead).
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Post by Foggy on Aug 10, 2023 23:28:47 GMT
Thanks so much for your efforts, Georg. It occurs to me that Meghalaya has a similar shape to that of Carinthia. Perhaps Shillong ought to be twinned with Klagenfurt?
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Post by Foggy on Aug 10, 2023 23:25:40 GMT
Slovenia has suffered some horrendous natural disasters this past week, but to my knowledge it has not slipped down into the Balkan peninsula. Anyway, I was in the division halfway between the parliamentary by-election and this one time-wise, in Ansford parish where two aunts and one uncle of mine now live. Not sure what the politics of the old couple in the big house up the hill (and beyond the orchard) are, but my spinster aunt had a LD leaflet still in her bungalow's letterbox when I was there and just out of sight of that, a big red Labour rosette pinned to the fridge. So, with no Labour candidate in sight, I presume she might have abstained or else cast a blank or spoiled vote today. My mother had been staying with her this morning and said to me on the phone in the evening that she wasn't aware of any plans to go out and vote having been discussed over breakfast. Decent win for the Lib Dems there, mind, and fair enough since they were the only party with any evidence of campaigning activity when I visited.
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Post by Foggy on Aug 8, 2023 0:20:57 GMT
I confess I have paid too little attention to Scotland, Northern Ireland and the 3 English regions where I didn't make any submissions at this Review, so some of the names and boundaries are going to come as a surprise to me in those areas on GE night itself. And you could say that puts me in a poor position to make a judgement.
But I do think this was a good time to make such a poll, around five weeks after the final proposals were published and we've all had time to calm down. If I think of where I've lived since the last completed Review, all the actual seats those places have ended up in are tightly drawn and have nice and succinct names.
It's only the failure to mitigate some of the potential worst knock-on effects in the rest of southern England and the rest of Wales that bother me: yes to the new Bangor Aberconwy, Bath, Bridgwater, Eastbourne and Weston-super-Mare but wasn't there a way to keep those and not end up with Tiverton & Minehead, Somerset NE & Hanham, Brecon Radnor & Cwm Tawe or Farnham & Bordon??
Overall it looks like a better effort than the previous two abandoned Reviews, and something needed to be forced through by this point anyhow. I can't bring myself to vote higher than 'neither good nor bad' though.
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Post by Foggy on Aug 2, 2023 0:26:50 GMT
Indeed he did. Although by this point it's now clear that the FTPA was just a bit of glue specifically there to hold the coalition together (and Cameron could still have chosen to go early before that was even passed, if he thought he had a chance of winning). There's also the factor that it felt like that Parliament had exhausted its term (seriously, just look at the flimsy agenda for the final session) even though I presume the following general election could've taken place as late as July 2015, constitutionally speaking? I don't quite see how Cameron could have called an election prior to the passing of the FTPA. Had he tried that, Clegg and the LDs could have entered into an arrangement with Milliband and formed a Rainbow Coalition including the smaller parties. As long as an alternative Government was available in the existing House of Commons a Dissolution was unlikely to be granted. Yes, fair point. Though the parliamentary arithmetic of such an arrangement wouldn't have been any less unfavourable than they had been in May 2010. Hadn't even thought if Red Ed would have been more or less palatable to the smaller parties than Brown was. Indeed he did. Although by this point it's now clear that the FTPA was just a bit of glue specifically there to hold the coalition together (and Cameron could still have chosen to go early before that was even passed, if he thought he had a chance of winning). There's also the factor that it felt like that Parliament had exhausted its term (seriously, just look at the flimsy agenda for the final session) even though I presume the following general election could've taken place as late as July 2015, constitutionally speaking? Without the FTPA i think it would have been June 2015 and with May 2015 as the Act said the first thursday in may in the 5th calendar year after the last one unless there was an early election (such as May got in 2017) and it was before May ten it would be the first thursday in May in the 4th calendar year after I was thinking that the 2010-15 Parliament first met in mid-May, so would've run out exactly 5 years later, and with the longest possible permitted* election campaign might've just seen the actual polling date creep into July. But your timetable is probably correct. * Although of course the government could simply have passed a law saying that official election campaigns can last for months as opposed to weeks, just like the Canadian Tories did in that very same year of 2015. Again, our own politicians really need to pay more attention to developments in His Majesty's other Realms. Unfortunately too many either navel-gaze or are obsessed with the United States as their only known example of an anglophone place where elections happen.
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Post by Foggy on Aug 1, 2023 17:20:54 GMT
One recent example from a Westminster system of a Prime Minister announcing a general election date ahead of time was Julia Gillard announcing the date of the 2013 federal election a whole year in advance. She was ousted as party leader with a couple of months to go, and then Labor lost heavily regardless so it's fair to say that strategy didn't work out for her or her party. Not sure if Sunak was taking notes on Commonwealth politics at the time, but somebody at Tory HQ will have been. David Cameron announced the date of the 2015 general election five years in advance, and went on it win it. Indeed he did. Although by this point it's now clear that the FTPA was just a bit of glue specifically there to hold the coalition together (and Cameron could still have chosen to go early before that was even passed, if he thought he had a chance of winning). There's also the factor that it felt like that Parliament had exhausted its term (seriously, just look at the flimsy agenda for the final session) even though I presume the following general election could've taken place as late as July 2015, constitutionally speaking?
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Post by Foggy on Aug 1, 2023 13:53:38 GMT
Announcing a date well before the Prime Minister has to removes one of the key advantages he has at his disposal, that of surprise. Although few elections are genuine snap elections, the exact date is often debated. Even if he announced in January the election would be on 2 May, he makes it a 20-week campaign. Although it would be a 'soft campaign' on paper, opposition election teams would immediately move into election footing, diverting resources, cancelling annual leave etc. It would stop all the trickle funding on advertising, which would be spread out to be suddenly congested. One recent example from a Westminster system of a Prime Minister announcing a general election date ahead of time was Julia Gillard announcing the date of the 2013 federal election a whole year in advance. She was ousted as party leader with a couple of months to go, and then Labor lost heavily regardless so it's fair to say that strategy didn't work out for her or her party. Not sure if Sunak was taking notes on Commonwealth politics at the time, but somebody at Tory HQ will have been.
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Post by Foggy on Jul 23, 2023 16:11:31 GMT
Vox want to take back Gibraltar actively and aggressively, so of course a Brexiteer would love them since they've happily tried to shaft The Rock once already.
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